


Heavy

by Schattenfeuer



Category: Nightmare Harem (Visual Novel)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Gen, Mental Instability, Mild Sexual Content, Other, Reader-Insert, genderneutral reader
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:08:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25807876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schattenfeuer/pseuds/Schattenfeuer
Summary: Your heart was a heavy one to carry, your beloved was weighed down by it and yet, he never gave up.
Relationships: Lucia/Reader
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter 1

“Please stay with me, stay at my side”, he knew what he asked for was impossible, yet he didn’t even tried to tamper down the hopefulness that pushed its way into his eyes, his voice as he reached for your arms, held you against his chest. You felt like a monster for what you were about to do, here in this vast strip of road in the middle of no man’s land, he stood and clung to you, to your love. “I will make you happy. I promise.”

For a moment, just a single moment, you allowed yourself to indulge in the fantasy of what could have been, the sweetness of what-if’s a temptation that almost managed to lull you in. You sighed heavily, your heart like a stone in your chest, you willed it to harden further, to grow cold and distant as you slowly peeled yourself away from Lucia, from his warmth and the offer of his world at your feet. Glossy, ocean blue eyes looked at you with hurt in them, he sensed your decision before you had the chance to open your mouth, but at the same time he was praying, you could read it from the tremble of his lips, read it in every shift of his hands, praying for something that would never happen. 

“I can’t stay.”, despite the softness of his voice, you could witness how every word, every syllable from your lips cut deep into his heart, shredding it piece by piece and you weren’t even done yet. Reaching out, despite knowing it better, despite the knowledge that you were only pouring more salt into his open wounds, you cupped his cheeks, surprised to find your palms wetted. “Lucia, I have people that rely on me, just like you have your own family. Staying here is something I could never do.”

“Please…”, how low must he have fallen, both for you and from grace to use this voice on you, to show this weakness of his in an instinctual reflex, that maybe if he showed you how to hit him where it hurt the most, you would still your hand, would relent and stay. Leaning deeper into your touch, you took a deep breath, stepped away from him, with your hands dropping uselessly, limply to your sides, their fingertips still wet and stained with salt as you realized how cruel this misguided kindness of yours had been. What a heavy burden your love had become, it was an iron ball wrapped around your ankles, was the weight to pull you down to the muddy bed of the river for you both to drown in the inevitability of being parted. “Your home...it’s here, with me...with us…”

You looked up when a feeling of weariness washed over you, watched the slow climb of the twin moons onto the darkest of night skies you had ever seen. Or maybe it was just you whose inner light had dimmed? Either way, the redness of the moon looked too much like the blood Lucia had spilled. Spilled, to protect you. A sad smile crept onto your lips and you met his gaze, which had never even wavered from you, still pleading, still hoping. 

“I think you’re gonna be a great king, Lucia.”, momentary confusion flittered over his expression, just a second before he flinched, tensed and moved forwards suddenly, his arms were around you once more, but you barely felt his warmth now, a coldness numbed you from the inside out, ice spread slowly, with every breath that entered your lungs. Your body felt so heavy, your eyelids fluttered shut and when your forehead fell against his collarbone, you could feel him laugh ever so softly, a sound that was beautiful in its sadness. “Forget all about me, but not that.”

“I can’t.”, he was still chuckling when you saw a faint shimmer of red spread over your skin like a gossamer veil, further and further until you were encased by it all. His soft chuckle morphed seamlessly into a heart wrenching sob when all his arms held was empty air. He was alone, standing in the middle of no man’s land like a bloodied, broken reminder of what could have been. “Just...until I see you again…”

You didn’t even needed to open your eyes to know that you were back in your world. There were the scents of chemicals, of cars and greasy food lingering in the pollution thick air and underneath the worn down soles of your old shoes, you felt concrete hard and unrelenting. The wetness on your cheeks did not come from the rain, you knew the taste of raindrops by heart, those ones? They burnt the tip of your tongue with the bitter and sour taste of salt. 

Time, this fickle, wily thing, had been acting strange ever since you returned from the fever dream that was Nightmare, you barely felt it pass and on other days it slowed down to an agonizing crawl, when even the steady tick, tick, tick of the clock’s pointers was too slow. Other times, you barely remembered what you did before they suddenly morphed back into the night. And those? They were the worst. You dreamt of Lucia, how could you not, everything and nothing reminded you of him, a small mercy and a curse, the sides of the same coin, your worlds had been too different, so nothing in your own environment was reminding you of him. But at the same time, you started to forget. 

Weeks after your return, you suddenly stilled in the middle of your cooking, because you could no longer remembered the taste of his favorite tea, the same one you had spilled over documents and his pants more than once. Discarding this as unimportant, you continued cooking, but at the end of it your hand holding the piece of vegetable you had been cutting sported three brand new bandages. 

When your mother called three months later, you were almost thankful for the gruesome news that your father was in the hospital. You felt sick at the fact that you were relieved. Now you knew you had made the right choice, now you could be there for your family. And you were. You held your mother as she cried at her husband’s side. You organized the funeral when your father’s heart failed many days later. Some off handed comment from your brother of how skilled you had become with organizing, froze you in your tracks, your lips twitched in a nihilistic smile that never reached your glazed over eyes. Your brother apologized and held you when you started to bawl, thinking that you were mourning your late father’s passing when in truth, you had been painfully reminded of the days spent scurrying around Lucia’s estate.

Somewhere you had heard that the first thing people forgot about other people, about them and not their likes or dislikes, was the sound of their voices. You didn’t notice it in the beginning, shied away from revisiting those painful and bittersweet memories at first. And later, you had just grown accustomed to the numb feeling they gave you. This chapter of your life was done and closed, never to be opened again. Three years after your father passed away, your mother became sick, her body frail, her mind failing. You quit your job and moved into your parents too large home to try to nurse her back to health and, when that failed, you tried your best to make her last days comfortable. 

“What is happening to you, dearie?”, your mother one evening asked, her bony hand pressed against your cheek and smiling in that kind way only mothers could do. Her eyes, for once clear and bright, were fixed on yours and your throat felt squeezed by an invisible fist. You were afraid that she could see deep inside your heart and see the regret that housed there, despite knowing it better, so you played her question off with a smile and some silly answer. She was not fooled but in her final kindness, she relented. “Your eyes are so sad nowadays.”

She passed away the next day and you were happy to leave the packing and organization of everything to your sister this time around. In a way, you were now free. Your siblings were always more distant from you, each of you had your own life to live. The idea to return to school, to study abroad came from a good friend which whom you had no longer contact nowadays. Thanks to the money given to you by your parents - blessed be their souls in their eternal rest - you could finally travel, see the world and learn and somewhere along the lines, you could no longer remember the shape of his lips, when they pulled and twisted into his trademark smirk.

A few years were spent in England, before the constant rain and the heavy clouds became too much for your mood, you packed up your things and moved onto the next plane. At that point you had already forgotten the correct shade of his hair. You barely thought back to those days nowadays, it felt unreal, distant, like a dream conjured up by a fever. If not for the faint throbbing of your heart, you would have long discarded everything as just that, a dream. A fragment of your youth’s imagination. 

In France you met your future spouse. You bonded over art and food, they were from the same country as you and had the gentlest eyes you had ever seen. As you looked in your spouse’s eyes during the exchange of vows, another flurry of years later, at the altar of this adorable little church in the countryside, you wondered if he had the same eyes. A part of you doubted it. 

The honeymoon was spent somewhere hot and tropical, you remembered it as only a blur of color and heat, both the temperature and the carnal kind of heat, before you two returned to your little three bedroom apartment. Routine settled in, hand in hand with domestic bliss and suddenly you and your spouse found yourselves expecting, your apartment became too small for the newest addition to your family and you moved once again. 

Your child was born and when your dreaded birthday rolled around, they were there with party hats and slightly crooked cake, eyes bright and sparkling with enthusiasm while your spouse sheepishly dropped the burnt remains of actual cake in the trash behind your child’s back. You laughed and petted the little one’s head. Sadly, this happiness was not meant to last and when your child was old enough to finish high school, you and your spouse decided to part ways amicably. Something about the way the light illuminated their leaving back brought forth sharp pangs of heartache and you thought yourself standing in a warm, tight embrace that smelled familiar and foreign at the same time, all while a blurry faced, young man was muttering something that never reached your ears.

Shaking off old, dust caked memories or dreams or whatever they were, you started anew, for your child. It could not be helped, this love was not meant to last, so why did it felt like such a relief, like a betrayal now? It did not matter. You moved on and your heavy heart grew a little lighter. Your fifth birthday rolled around and you celebrated it alone, your child was fully grown now and you hadn’t dated anyone else for quite some time yet, but you still did not felt lonely, instead you nursed a glass of wine on your balcony while enjoying the sunset. 

When you fell asleep, you dreamt you were drenched in red light and then you were falling, floating gently through the air until you crumbled, collapsed on a bed of crushed roses and grass. Grey streaks in your hair flashed up in the morning sun, as you brushed it out of your face, your mind still too drunk from the wine and your restless sleep to put together the meaning behind this. One moment, you were curled up in a cozy blanket on your balcony, the next you found yourself sitting between neatly trimmed roses in your favorite color. You got up slowly, cursed your aging joints and your bad knee, a result from a minor car accident from when before your child had been born. You stretched and wandered down the sandstone pathway that curled through this garden like the yellow brick path.

Voices reached your ear, males, all of them and since you were lost anyways, you followed them, past flowerbeds and towards a gazebo hidden in the shadow of an imposing estate. You would have stopped to oogle but the desire to come in contact with some other human was too tempting, especially since you wore only your shabby sleepwear, padded along the pathway barefooted and with messy hair. Around the last corner, you heard yelling, heard someone intercept and then a chuckle that was beautiful in its eternal sadness. It plucked the strings of your tired heart and you twisted the golden wedding band that you were still wearing out of pure habit. 

The voices came to a sudden stop when you stepped out of the shadows, you felt confused as to why you were not surprised by the get up of the men, rich fabric, vibrant in color and speckled with bits and baubles of jewelry, not even their unusual hair color could shock you, you had raised a kid after all. What pulled the rag from underneath you however, was the feeling of rightfulness that settled within your bones. 

“Uhm...hello.”, you waved your hand shyly, unsure of where to start, how to proceed, the five men were equally shocked, you felt their gazes like needle jabs all over your body, but one was different, that one felt heavier, was weighing you down like a cloak out of the finest of velvet, it caressed your age marked face, followed the grey mixing in with your natural hair color and finally settled upon your lips, still blue from the heady wine. Glass shattered when one of the men stood up abruptly, the crown resting heavily on his head glimmered and you stared wide eyed as a smirk stretched over his lips, wide enough to show the tips of fangs. Strangely enough, even as the man stepped closer, close enough that you could see his own grey streaked, ruby red hair in the light, there was no fear, only a faint tingling of a familiar feeling. “I’m --”

“You are home.”, suddenly you were pressed against a warm chest, caught in strong arms while warm drops of salty rain drenched your temple and your hair, his lips touching your ear, warm just as his breath fanning against the shell of it. His voice broke and shook and morphed from a chuckle seamlessly into a sob. The arms around you tightened their grip. “You are finally home.”


	2. Chapter 2

Your head was spinning and a heavy feeling was pressing down on your heart, you did not remember when you had lifted your arms, only that suddenly, you were grabbing fistsful of thick, red velvet and damask, warm from the heat emanating off his skin in nauseating waves. You did not know if you were pulling him close or pushing him away, as he caught you in his arms, so tightly that breathing became a heavy task, almost as heavy as the feeling on your heart. 

“You are finally home, I’ve waited for so long”, who was this man that he spoke so familiar to you? You wrecked your brain, but all you could summon up were the shattered remnants of a washed out fever dream, something from decades past, try as you might, you couldn’t pierce them together to create a bigger picture. But he must know you, for he seemed so genuinely happy, you could feel the steady drumming of his heartbeat against your cheek, his warm breath fanning against your hair. The curve of his smile against your scalp. “Oh, it’s been so long…”

“Brother...is that…”, one of the other men behind the red haired king spoke finally up, voice breezy and gentle, almost entirely veiling the unease that hearing it brought you. Still, you couldn’t help but stiffen, finally gathering your strength to push away, break free from the king’s grip. Stumbling backwards, you felt the hurt that flashed over his mien like the lashing of a whip, why did this hurt him so much? Your confused fumbling, a knife that buried itself deeper and deeper into his flesh. Licking your lips, you could still taste the memory of your drink before you fell asleep, a soothing thought came over you. Drunk. You were drunk and sleeping, that was it. “After all this time…”

“Tsk, I think you’ve finally gone mad.”, and finally the third one spoke up, your gaze snapped towards him and for a moment you felt his golden eyes jogging your foggy memory. It was so close, you could feel the tingle of remembrance at the forefront of your mind only for it to slip through your grasping fingers like water or fine sand. This was it, you had enough, this was madness. Turning around on your heel, you were hellbent on marching out of this Alice in Wonderland esque dream, back into your reality, where all you had to worry about were mundane, everyday problems. 

“Ah...wait!”, the crowned one’s hand grabbed your wrist in a vine like grip, you felt your pulse spike in a sudden onslaught of panic, even with the gentleness in his ocean blue eyes. Or maybe because of it, for you did not know how it came to be, how to reciprocate it, all you could do was faking and hoping it would fool this strange crowd. Ah, this feeling drove you insane, slowly but surely, like the buzzing of a bug inside your skull, an inch in that one spot between your shoulderblades that you just could not reach, no matter how much you twisted and turned. “You can’t just leave. Stay a while. Just like last time.”

“Last time…?”, the king had averted his gaze at your mumbled question, looked over his shoulder to hide the glint of sadness and grief dulling his eyes, but when he turned his head once more to meet your gaze head on, a mischievous smirk was plastered on his lips. You tilted your head, eyebrows twitching in silent question. Were those the tips of fangs you were seeing, poking out at the corner of his mouth? 

You had gone mad. Must be. Or you had dropped off your balcony in drunken stupor and were now hooked up to life preserving machines inside a hospital. There was no way for this dream to feel so real, too real, even for a lucid dream. Looking around the room they - the king and his colorful brothers - had given you, confusion only rose higher and higher, you shook your head and still, even after pinching your cheek until it was red and swollen, nothing woke you up. You were still here, in this strange room that looked like it came straight out of the victorian era, could hear the muffled sounds of servants, maids and butlers running back and forth in the halls. 

A dinner with the family, the king had said, to celebrate the arrival of the long awaited guest. You would not be surprised at this point if a white rabbit would pop out of nowhere, muttering about tea parties and being late, the only real thing that kept you grounded in this moment was the weight of your old wedding ring around your finger as you turned and twisted it, as if the movement alone would help you figure this insane dream out. 

Someone knocked and you answered out of pure habit, the person who entered yet another face that contorted in surprise at the sight of you, weary and anxious as you paced back and forth between the luxurious bed and the heavy writing desk. The young man’s jaw grew slack and when his eyes started to water, you felt panic surge through you, he dropped the package he had been carrying to clasp his hands in front of his chest. 

“Oh...it’s you...it’s really you!”, unlike the last one that had hugged you, this one felt more desperate, bone crushing, given the fact that he was taller than you, but something about the way he freely sobbed into your shoulder reminded you so much of your own child, you couldn’t help but coo soothing little nothings into the young stranger’s ear, all while rubbing circles onto his broad back. The throbbing settling behind your eyeballs was only the first sign of an incoming migraine, triggered by this nonsense happening all around you. The young man - Kurt as he called himself - kept chewing off your ear, babbling happily to you like a young boy to his best friend, you drowned in the onslaught of information he showered you in. It unsettled you to your very core, to hear him call your name so casually, to talk about adventures and things you had done when you couldn’t even remember him. 

And then there was the way his face fell when you told him just that, you could have slapped him across the face and he would have taken it better. His eyes, still red rimmed from crying before, started to shine with unspilled tears once more, yet another thorn wedged between your ribs to slice away at your heart, you thought, yet another expectation you had disappointed as Kurt all but fled out of the room, leaving you alone with the things he had brought. 

Things did not became any better after you had somehow managed to squeeze yourself in the clothing prepared for you. While it was better than your baggy sleeping wear, you couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable, the pinch and rubbing of silk over your skin unfamiliar and yet…

Your hands were still busy playing with the seam of your top when a sharp eyed butler led you into a finely decorated room, indicated for you to take a seat at a table decked fit for a king. And in a way it was, you had arrived as the last person and so everyone’s eyes were on you, an uncomfortable feeling that made you want to turn into a tiny mouse, made you want to scamper off and hide in some hole in the ground. Discomfort and confusion pulled your features taunt, paralyzed your muscles until you couldn’t even fake a smile anymore, balling your fists on your lap, you watched how they each introduced themselves gracefully, their names slipping and becoming one with the fog inside your mind. Surreal as this was, you felt the weight of one particular gaze on you like a blanket wrapped tightly around your shoulders. 

The king, Lucia, barely touched his food, just like you barely managed to swallow a single bite in this tense atmosphere, but every time your gaze strayed towards him, you caught him looking, intently and intense, wine in one hand, a strange smile on his lips. You were never so relieved in your life when this dinner was finally over and you could flee once more. Always from the suffocating feeling of eyes all over your face and hair and when you finally found yourself back in the garden, you almost choked on your hectic breathing, had to sit down on a nearby bench, for it felt too much like the world was resting on your shoulders. You wondered if Atlas had felt the same way as he had held the entire sky up on his shoulders. 

“Here you are…I was searching all over you.”, you didn’t even had the energy to flinch when Lucia appeared out of nowhere to take an uninvited seat uncomfortably close to you. All you could do was sigh and accept, because there was something you missed, something important. What, you could not deduce, but you could feel it, something that connected you to Lucia like the red cord of fate, the same shade as his greying hair. “You now...this feels just like back then.”

“Everyone keeps saying that. Everyone keeps calling me by my name, despite me never introducing myself. You all act like you know me, but I do not know anyone of you.”, bitterness tinged your words, made them sharper than it was your intention, but to Lucia’s credit, he took it in stride, the smile on his lips never once faltering, so unlike before. Instead, he just looked up, watched the twin moons as they slowly rose from their beds beyond the horizon to start their steady climb up the sky’s dome. “I want to go home.”

“But you are home”, he sounded like he meant it. You could feel his body heat when he inched even closer, one arm curled around your shoulders as he nuzzled against your neck, his lashes tickling your jawline and his hair your cheek. The urge to fight him off melted, as an old feeling slowly started to emerge, the colors blurred silvery and you had to close your eyes because the weight of your teardrops falling became too much, heat prickled the side of your eyes, flared up even more when warm, slightly chapped lips pressed against your cheek, catching each salty drop before it could fall far. “You are back where you belong. At my side.”

“I don’t even know you”, you started to beg, to whimper, because it became all too much, you thought about your home, your kid must have surely been worried by now. That was more than you could say about your ex partner or your siblings. As amicably as you had parted ways, it still did little to lessen the distance that had built up between you and the rest of your family. You were starving and Lucia was here to ease that hunger with his particular touch. You should have felt bad for using him like this, but the pangs of guilt were pushed out of your mind for he met your lips with anticipation and eagerness, as if he had just been waiting for this, his hand curled around your nape and your hands were in his hair, disregarding the heavy crown resting on top of his head in favor of pulling him closer.

It dropped into the soft grass, gold dusted with blades of green and stains of soil, you cared little for it and instead opted to fall deeper into Lucia’s embrace, he was a drug for your hurt and confused mind, he eased the pain of not remembering and homesickness, of distance and agony previously unknown into a comfortable numbness. You were fine with letting him use your body too, the edges of the bench pressing into your back, cool night air hitting your exposed skin, wetted by his early roaming mouth, as his fingers worked nimbly and quick, as if he had done this a thousand times over. 

“I missed you, I’ve waited for so long”, he muttered against your collarbone, casting a quick glance up through long lashes, the ocean of his eyes cast in turmoil, because even in his delusion he could see your dulled eyes. It didn’t matter. He was warm and heavy and you were caught underneath him, melting, taking him perfectly, your keening pure music in his ears as he fumbled with his belt, so long. He had waited so long for this moment, he couldn’t help but stumble over his own words, his fingers started to shiver and then dig too deep in the softness of your spread thighs. Just like your arms around his neck, your body welcomed him with heat and tightness that made him whimper in bliss. “I love you. Don’t leave my side again.”

Drowning out his mindless babbling, you turned your head away, bit your lips and silently took whatever he was willing to give, drowning in senseless pleasure was better than stumbling around helplessly, unknowingly. What harm could there be in letting him believe in his delusions of grand love? 

As if turned out, there was plenty of harm done. You didn’t even remember how you had ended up in this unfamiliar bedroom, a small strip of morning light tickling your tired, sore body, but when you tried to move, the clinking of metal almost deafened you. Ripping away the blanket, you stared with horror at the hand shaped bruises along your thighs, horror morphing into pure disbelief as the coldness of the shackle seeped finally through your bleary mind, heavy still with sleep. Tightly it sat around your ankle, connected to the bedpost by a long chain, curled up like a sleeping snake. A flash of red in the corner of your sight caused your head to turn around fast enough to make your spine pop, there he was, lounging on his side, head lazily propped up on one hand, watching you with lovesick eyes of ocean blue. 

“Don’t worry, love. I will make you happy.”, he murmured so softly, it twisted your stomach into knots. Because the reality and his delusion coming together revealed a sad and sickening picture of longing and forgetting, of an inability to let the past die. As he pressed a kiss onto your forehead, he smiled and you felt like crying. “Welcome home.”


End file.
